Paging Barry Richard. Mr. Barry Richard, please
pick up the nearest white courtesy phone...
Posted on 10/28/2002 11:38:04 AM PST by GraniteStateConservative
Minnesota Update:
A Republican tracking poll done over the weekend shows a hypothetical race between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Walter Mondale at 43 percent for Coleman and 45 percent for Mondale. Mondale's name was floated over the weekend, but the Democrats won't name a replacement for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone until Wednesday.
In addition to the other political ramifications of Friday's plane crash that killed Wellstone and seven other people, there are implications for Minnesota voters who had planned to cast absentee ballots in the Nov. 5 election.
Scott Simmons, the Minnesota Director of Elections, tells CBS News that there are a number of different issues that the state and individual counties must deal with. Those who have already received ballots can write-in a new name - Walter Mondale's, for example - and send it in. If they have already mailed-in their ballot, they can come back on Nov. 5 and cast a new ballot to change their vote. Or, they can let their original vote stand. Any absentee votes for Wellstone will be tabulated, but they won't actually count toward any election results, nor will a vote for Wellstone, a Democrat, transfer to whomever replaces him as the DFL nominee. Absentee ballots cast for Coleman will be counted toward his final tally.
Individual counties are responsible for distributing and counting absentee ballots, Simmons said, so estimating the actual number of outstanding ones is difficult to gauge. However, in the last non-presidential election year, 1998, there were 93,356 absentee votes. Since the number of absentee voters has increased each election for a decade, Simmons estimated there would be roughly 100,000 in 2002, if not more, although it is impossible to accurately predict the final number. They estimate that about half of the 100,000 expected have already been turned in.
Any in-person vote, Simmons said, trumps an absentee ballot. And since absentee ballots are not even opened until all the polls close on Election Day, it should not cause a major logistical problem to use the in-person ballots instead.
Printing new Senate ballots for regular voting presents another logistical headache for Minnesota elections officials. The original ballots had been printed before Wellstone died, of course, and contained all statewide races. Those ballots will have the Senate race, which listed Wellstone as the DFL candidate, literally blotted out. Voters instead will receive a separate piece of paper, or supplemental ballot, that will list Coleman, Tricomo, Moore, a write-in line and Mondale or whomever ends up being the DFL nominee.
All of those supplemental ballots will have to be hand-counted, Simmons said. While the actual number of Senate ballots is difficult to estimate, 2,419,520 ballots were cast in Minnesota's Senate race in 2000, which was a presidential election year. In addition, after the votes are hand-counted, the precinct-by-precinct tallies will have to be manually entered into the state's central vote-counting system.
Simmons had no way to estimate how long it will take Minnesota to certify a winner in its Senate election, but he did know one thing for sure.
"We won't have a result on Tuesday night," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Paging Barry Richard. Mr. Barry Richard, please
pick up the nearest white courtesy phone...
One, the race, without every laying a glove on NMondale is a dead heat, WITH a sympathy bounce.
TWO, out of 100K absentee, if they split 50-50, odds are only half of the Wellstone 50 will bother to revote, giving Coleman a 2 to advantage in that balloting.
Coleman has the advantage of a whole campaign, with staff, in full swing. Mondale won't be able to get up to speed in that regard by election day.
Mondale's advantage is that he gets the presumption that he is the mournful, "elder statesman." He'll get loads of free press lauding him and talking about how great Wellstone's leftist accomplishments were (implying Mondale will continue them). As long as he can keep the press from focusing on any new statements or positions he takes, he'll be able to use the fawning media to substitute for a campaign.
Mondale's greatest disadvantage is that his support will be very "soft." The more people focus on the issues and candidates, the less Mondale can automatically hold Wellstone's base. There is even the possibility of Mondale losing a percentage or two to the Green Party candidate, regardless of what the Coleman campaign does. Coleman doesn't have this problem.
Translation: "Democrats who have already voted will be allowed to vote more than once. We're just trying to make this election day as normal as possible for the Democrats. Our reading of the law indicates that this is completely improper -- but we don't care. Thanks, and have a nice day."
Perhaps Mondale will now fade, especially if he agrees to a Friday night debate.
The most recent polls to the crash were the candidates' internal tracking polls. They both had Coleman slightly ahead (but within the margin of error).
National news stories that have been claiming Wellstone was ahead are referring to polls a couple of weeks ago that coincided with a new series of Wellstone ads hitting the air. Coleman's campaign didn't have quite as much money as Wellstone's, so their main ad blitz had to wait a until a bit closer to the election.
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